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Monthly Archives: March 2006

what’s in a name?

Sunday, March 19, 2006

I’m often attracted to a building by its windows. Large multi-paned windows. Windows that invite light and shadow. The old factory near Dongzhimen Beixiaojie just inside the 2nd Ring Road is just the sort of building I’m talking about. Walking past on a clear Sunday afternoon, I was seized by the thought of what it [...]

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XWhyZ

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Normally I wouldn’t get into an unmarked cab, but we were nearly due to meet a friend at the opening of Dongcheng’s new gallery space, XWhyZ, so Shu and I agreed to a 10 kuai flat-fee and headed to the 2-storey building off Nanmencang Hutong. XWhyZ joins the mere handful of galleries located inside the [...]

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from the window

Friday, March 17, 2006

From the 10th floor you can look down at a maze of demolished courtyard houses, their gaping shells obscured by a curtain of dust. They say this wind blows in from Mongolia, kicking up rubble and dirt and bits of trash. “Stay inside today,” an altruistic co-worker advises. Down below people in windbreakers and polyester [...]

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Someday it will be easier

Sunday, March 12, 2006

The cabbie asked where we were going and I told him in stuttering Chinese, “Ritan Gongyuan.” I could see him grin and arch an eyebrow through the rearview mirror. “You’re not Chinese?” he asked slyly. I tell him I’m Chinese but raised in the United States. He pauses for a second and asks if it [...]

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it’s all just fun until…

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Figures were released last week by Beijing News on fireworks-related incidents reported during this year’s Spring Festival. Here are the stats:
Number of fireworks-related deaths in Beijing: 0
Number of fireworks-related deaths in China: 63
Number of fireworks-related injuries in Beijing: 838
Number of fireworks-related fires in Beijing: 384

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northern boys

Wednesday, March 8, 2006

Northern boys have porcelain faces suffused with pink. Their eyes, black and mercurial, take in the world all at once, with pupils that absorb light and dark, colors and movement. They dart across ten lanes of zig-zagging traffic toting oversized duffle bags, laughing at bicyclists and daring cabs to run them over. Clothed in too-small [...]

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nights out when i should have stayed in

Wednesday, March 8, 2006

At 7pm on a Friday night, it takes approximately one and a half hours to drive 10 miles to the eastern part of Beijing. Traffic snarls past narrow alleyways, overtakes pedestrians and tries the patience of many. I sit, legs pressed to leather upholstery, absentmindedly nodding to a dancehall CD smuggled in from Antigua.

At the [...]

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